Soviet Jews to Stage Hunger Strike

December 21, 1971

TEL AVIV (Dec. 20)

According to reports here from Jewish sources in the Soviet Union, Jewish prisoners in the USSR will stage a one-day hunger strike next Friday. Dec. 24, the anniversary of the sentences handed down in the first Leningrad hijack trial. The prisoners have asked Jews in Israel to observe a hunger strike on the same date. Dr. Benjamin Halevy, a Knesset member of the Gahal faction, has asked the government to grant automatic citizenship to all Jewish political prisoners in the USSR on the anniversary date. There are about 40 Jews presently in Soviet jails and labor camps.